5.
SV New Director General speaking in Arabic and members applaud (4 shots)
1.15

Initials

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: At the annual conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, Italy, on Monday (10 November), Dr. Edouard Saouma, of Lebanon was elected as the new Director General of the Organisation for a six year term. Dr. Saouma, who is 48, replaces Dr. Addake Boerma who retires from the Organisation at the end of the year after 25 years - eight of them as Director General.

Dr. Saouma, who is a former Lebanese Minister of Agriculture, is currently the Director of the FAO's Fowls Land and Water Development division. There was a move to make his electing unanimous by acclamation after he had headed the first ballot of six candidates with 62 votes. But the rules of the 133-member Organisation dictated that a second secret ballot should take place. This gave the new Director General 121 votes, with seven abstentions.

The outgoing Director General, Dr. Boerma, strongly criticised the Soviet Union for not joining the Organisation even though it was a major agricultural nation. In his farewell address to the conference, Dr. Boerma said that universality of membership was essential if the FAD was to lead the attack on world hunger. He stressed that one of his main sources of satisfaction during his term of office had been the decision of China to rejoin the organisation.

Two thousand neo-Fascists, many carrying swastika-emblazoned 'Hitler Youth' daggers and wearing brown uniform shirts of the outlawed NAZI Party, clashed with several hundred anti-Fascists during a torch-light parade in Vienna, Austria, October 18.

Delegates from Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and Gambia met in Nouakchott, Mauritania on Wednesday, July 21 for a two day sub-regional conference of the Organisation for the Development of Tourism in Africa (ODTA).